“The Lord gives strength to His people. The Lord blesses His people with peace.” -Psalm 28:11
May I make an announcement, ladies and gentlemen-
*Ahem*
Well, gentleman, anyway. The time is nigh, and the robins have proclaimed it: Spring is finally upon us!
If there is any author in the entire world worth mentioning alongside the glorious heralding of Spring, what with the wind billowing in, shunting the biting ice of Winter away, and bringing out flowers, and reminding trees how to dance (pushing their leafy hair out of their eyes), and guiding birds and insects back into the gardens (I always forget how quiet the world is until Spring comes again), it is Jeanne Birdsall.
Refreshing, sweet, wonderful, and perfect. These are words to describe Spring, and Jeannie Birdsall’s books.
What is it about them? I always read her book series and without fail, my life becomes just that much more beautiful because of the promise of a good book before bed. Finishing the last of her books in the series, as I have so manymany times, always makes me feel as though I have lost a friend. I can hardly restrain myself from immediately starting all over again, but, as Jane Letitia Penderwick herself wisely put it, reading the same book twice would be, “a disaster, like eating three large slices of chocolate cake at one setting” (Birdsall. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, pg. 176). The Penderwick books are so much more than just happy, fluffy, fairy-tales; they are masterpieces, bits of Heaven for any hard-worn human to curl up with. The Penderwicks aren’t like any ordinary family. They’re much greater.
There aren’t many books that I would attribute perfection towards (indeed, since we are human, there really cannot be perfection--that’s what makes us so interesting), but when reading a book gives me the ability to feel a late Summer breeze pull back my hair in the middle of Winter, I know there is some sort of perfection involved. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of my own Springs, Summers, Autumns, and yes, even Winters as a child with my three sisters. They were the best years ever. Magical.
All because we were raised to be full of love, and imagination, and honor, and fun, which is what Jeanne Birdsall puts into her Penderwick series, which is what we should all put into our own writing.
What would the point of books be if they didn’t make people smile? Sometimes books have to be deeper and darker (Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, a personal favorite, for example), and that I completely understand, because books are here, in part, to make us think. To show us new ways of seeing, and to make us (to put it rather bluntly), better people. But if a book doesn’t manage to make the reader either smile with happiness, nod in agreement, or feel a weight being lifted off of her shoulders because, yes, yes, there is good in the world, and this book understands me, this book is my friend, then the book fails.
I would be proud to have my writing compared to Jeanne Birdsall’s. She it wise beyond her years because she understands what’s important in life, and she knows how to make me feel at home. I can’t even begin to tell you how many nights I’ve spent, unable to sleep for countless reasons, my stomach twisted up in knots, and I couldn’t find a single book to console me.
I want my books to console frightened, sleepless readers. I want my books, without strictly saying it, to tell you that, yes, yes, there is good in the world, and I understand you, and I am your friend, and everything is going to be alright.
As a human, I’m sometimes not sure how to say that. As a writer, equipped with the prose of such minds as Jeanne Birdsall, I might be able to write it. Then I would be able to feel
as though my writing was finally worthwhile, because it lifted some sort of misery off of some reader’s shoulders. Perhaps by sharing similar stories of grief, or giving an excellent opportunity to laugh, or displaying a pleasing example of a human being that’s worth his or her own fictional skin.
Or a satisfying display of putting a worthless fictional character in his or her worthless place.
Do you know the Sigh? The reading sigh, the sigh that follows a piece of writing, or a movie, or a sunset (because I almost always manage to sleep through the sunrises), that isn’t just any ordinary sigh. It’s the Sigh of Spring. It comes from pure joy that gets you just where you need it, at the moment joy seems so far away, and unattainable. Some people call it natural dopamine-
I'm still sticking with pixies.
Either way, Jeanne Birdsall’s admirable Penderwick books are pure joy, and we are lucky enough to have access to them. I will always continue reading them, loving them, shedding tears for them, and, above all, learning from them.
And once again, Spring is here! What could be better than reading The Penderwicks in Spring in the Spring?